Is the Internet Broken?

"Clark argues that it's time to rethink the Internet's basic architecture, to potentially start over with a fresh design -- and equally important, with a plausible strategy for proving the design's viability, so that it stands a chance of implementation. "It's not as if there is some killer technology at the protocol or network level that we somehow failed to include," says Clark. "We need to take all the technologies we already know and fit them together so that we get a different overall system. This is not about building a technology innovation that changes the world but about architecture -- pulling the pieces together in a different way to achieve high-level objectives."(Talbot 2005)

This is a paragraph from the David Talbot review of David D Clarke's research for the MIT lab on the future of the Internet. I think this is a very insightful view into Internet security and other flaws that are concentrated on within the site.

This was written in December of 2005 and the National Science Federation (NSF) states that a large amount of funding has afforded them the possibility of devising "a five to seven year plan... to develop clean-slate architectures". Three years on I would love an update... hold that thought.

Ok, here is an update for all of you on the NSF's research. This is actually a really good read, I enjoyed it. It is an unusually positive upbeat approach to the future which I have come to learn by now that those types of articles are rare. Most things written on the Internet are not very optimistic. This was..read into it what you will.

Three Wishes for a Future Internet
GENI Project Will Soon Be At Your Command
Written and released on the 21st May 2007.


The GENI network

"The Global Environment for Network Innovation, or GENI, is envisioned as a set of components including optical substrates, forwarders, storage, process clusters, sensor fields, and wireless regions combined with a software management framework. That configuration will allow researchers to run thousands of experiments simultaneously."(Fuller, 2007)

Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation

"GENI will give scientists a clean slate on which to imagine a completely new Internet that will likely be materially different from that of today. We want to ensure that this next stage of transformation will be guided by the best possible network science, design, experimentation, and engineering," said principal investigator and project director Chip Elliott of BBN.


Once again I have digressed a little but in my exploration of the future of the Internet I have come out feeling all warm and fuzzy instead of filled with dread that 'net neutrality' and a million other terrible things lie in store for us.

I feel comforted by the fact that the NSF have got it under control to a degree and I have faith that it will all work out. I have now bookmarked the NSF site and know that with NET11 closing in on me this is the deciding factor that I needed to be aware that I have become the Internet nerd I always knew was within.


References:

Talbot, D. (2005) Technology Review: The Internet Is Broken. Retrieved 11th August 2008
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16051&ch=infotech&pg=2

Fuller, N. (2007) The National Science Federation: Three Wishes for a future Internet Retrieved 11th August 2008
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=109589